Climate

August 8, 2017 03:30 PM - Yale Environment 360

It is a painful lesson of our time that the things we depend on to make our lives more comfortable can also kill us. Our addiction to fossils fuels is the obvious example, as we come to terms with the slow-motion catastrophe of climate change. But we are addicted to nitrogen, too, in the fertilizers that feed us, and it now appears that the combination of climate change and nitrogen pollution is multiplying the possibilities for wrecking the world around us.

August 8, 2017 03:12 PM - National Science Foundation

An abnormal season of intense glacial melt in 2002 triggered multiple distinct changes in the physical and biological characteristics of Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys over the ensuing decade, new research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) shows.

The findings suggest that abrupt, short-lived climate events can cause long-term alterations in polar regions that unfold over the span of several years and subsequently change the overall trajectory of an ecosystem.

The new research appears today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

August 8, 2017 02:33 PM - George Washington University

Pregnant women are an important but thus far largely overlooked group vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat linked to climate change, according to new research by Sabrina McCormick, PhD, an Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University.

August 8, 2017 01:22 PM - South Coast Air Quality Management District

In a groundbreaking study released today, scientists at the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the University of Southern California have found that widespread installation of certain “cool roof” materials in the region could slightly increase ozone and fine particulate pollution levels.

August 8, 2017 08:26 AM - University of British Columbia

If ocean temperatures continue to climb, you’re going to need a bigger boat.

Great white sharks could one day be swimming in British Columbia waters, according to William Cheung, associate professor at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at UBC who studies the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems.

August 4, 2017 05:03 PM - Yale Environment 360

Faced with a lawsuit by 15 states, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced this week it would no longer delay the implementation of a rule requiring states to reduce emissions of smog-creating air pollution.

Crafted by the Obama administration in 2015, the regulation calls for states to begin meeting stricter ozone standards as of October 1, 2017, lowering the air pollution limit from 0.075 parts per million to 0.070 ppm. Ground-level ozone, or smog, is created when pollutants from cars, power plants, and other common industrial activities react with sunlight. It can cause respiratory and other health problems. In June, U.S. EPA head Scott Pruitt announced the agency would delay implementation of the new standards by one year.

August 4, 2017 03:26 PM - University of Colorado at Boulder

On the North Slope of Alaska, snow is melting earlier in the spring and the snow-in date is happening later in the fall, according to a new study by CIRES and NOAA researchers. Atmospheric dynamics and sea ice conditions are behind this lengthening of the snow-free season, the scientists found, and the consequences are far reaching—including birds laying eggs sooner and iced-over rivers flowing earlier.

“The timing of snowmelt and length of the snow-free season significantly impacts weather, the permafrost, and wildlife—in short, the Arctic terrestrial system as a whole,” said Christopher Cox, a scientist with CIRES at the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA’s Physical Sciences Division in Boulder, Colorado. The study has been accepted for publication in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

The eleventh tropical depression of the Eastern Pacific Ocean hurricane season came together on August 4 even though it was being affected by vertical wind shear.

NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Depression 11E on August 4, 2017 at 10:45 a.m. EDT (1445 UTC) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The image showed that the bulk of clouds appeared on the western side of the storm, which indicates wind shear was likely affecting the storm.

August 4, 2017 02:52 PM - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Tropical Storm Nalgae can’t seem to get a break from vertical wind shear. The storm has been dealing with wind shear since it formed and NASA’s Terra satellite observed that was still the case on August 4.

August 4, 2017 02:52 PM - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Tropical Storm Nalgae can’t seem to get a break from vertical wind shear. The storm has been dealing with wind shear since it formed and NASA’s Terra satellite observed that was still the case on August 4.